Senior Software Engineer

Talent Insights Group; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 148,000 - 185,000; Full time

Job summary

Talent Insights Group in Sydney is seeking a Senior Software Engineer (Backend / Full Stack) for a 6 month contract. The role is hybrid in Sydney with a day rate of $800-1000 including super, DOE.

You'll join a high-performing engineering team building a complex, revenue-critical platform, taking ownership across campaigns, data, APIs, and integrations while mentoring peers.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience
• Strong backend experience with Kotlin or Java
• Experience with Spring Boot and JVM
• Strong API and software engineering fundamentals
• Relational DB experience (PostgreSQL)
• Cloud exposure (GCP)
• Experience with distributed systems/production services
• Strong communication and collaboration skills

Responsibilities

• Take ownership from design through production
• Break complex problems into pieces of work
• Contribute hands-on to technical details
• Make sound engineering decisions
• Guide and mentor other engineers
• Communicate clearly and proactively
• Collaborate with Product, Data, QA and Engineering
• Investigate issues and resolve outages
• Think about wider system beyond own work
• Help establish better engineering practices

Skills

Kotlin/Java

Spring Boot

GCP

PostgreSQL

REST APIs

Distributed systems

React/TypeScript

BigQuery/dbt

Kubernetes

Terraform/CI/CD

Tools

Kubernetes

BigQuery

dbt

Job description

Senior Software Engineer - Backend / Full Stack

Sydney | Hybrid

6 Month Contract

$800-1000 a day including super DOE

We're looking for Senior Software Engineers who can do more than just write good code.

This is a chance to join a high-performing engineering team building a complex, revenue-critical digital platform within one of Australia's biggest retail environments. The team is growing quickly, with multiple Senior Engineers joining across two squads. And they're looking for engineers who can genuinely take ownership.

The opportunity

You'll be working on a platform that sits at the heart of a growing retail business. Behind the scenes, it's a pretty interesting engineering problem - complex campaign workflows, large volumes of data, APIs, third-party integrations, reporting and measurement, all running on a platform where reliability and quality directly impact revenue.

You'll work primarily across:

• Kotlin / Java & Spring Boot
• GCP
• PostgreSQL
• REST APIs and distributed systems
• React & TypeScript
• BigQuery / dbt
• Kubernetes
• Terraform / CI/CD

What they're really looking for

They're not looking for someone who simply takes a ticket, writes the code and moves on.

• Take ownership of a problem from design through to production
• Break complex problems down into sensible pieces of work
• Get hands-on with the technical detail
• Make sound engineering decisions
• Guide and mentor other engineers
• Communicate clearly and proactively
• Work collaboratively across Product, Data, QA and Engineering
• Investigate issues when things inevitably go wrong
• Think beyond your immediate piece of work and look at the wider system
• Help establish better engineering practices across the team

The sweet spot is someone who can lead without becoming disconnected from the code.

You'll have the autonomy of a senior engineer, but you'll also be expected to roll your sleeves up and get stuck into the hard technical problems.

You’ll probably bring

• ~8+ years' software engineering experience
• Strong backend experience in Kotlin or Java
• Spring Boot / JVM experience
• Strong API and software engineering fundamentals
• Experience working with relational databases, ideally PostgreSQL
• Exposure to cloud environments - GCP particularly relevant
• Experience with distributed systems / production services
• Strong communication and collaboration skills
• A genuine ownership mentality

Bonus points for:

React/TypeScript, Kubernetes, Temporal, BigQuery, dbt, Terraform or experience using AI/agentic tooling to accelerate software development.

The environment

This is a fast-moving product environment. They're building something genuinely complex and don't want people operating in silos. You should be curious, pragmatic, decisive and comfortable with ambiguity. If you've come from a product, SaaS, eCommerce, adtech, retail tech or another environment where engineers are expected to think, build and own we'd love to hear from you.

The interview process is deliberately streamlined - technical + behavioural interview followed by a system design/whiteboard exercise, with fast feedback.